SEOUL: South Korean police raided the headquarters of Starbucks\u2019 local operation as part of an investigation into a controversial marketing campaign that was perceived as defaming 1980s\u2019 pro-democracy movements.<\/p>\n
Investigators searched the Starbucks headquarters in southern Seoul on Tuesday, police said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Police gave no further details, but South Korean media reported investigators also were sent to the residences of Starbucks executives.<\/p>\n
The coffee chain triggered a public uproar when it attempted to promote a series of stainless-steel tumblers it called \u201cSS Tank\u201d by declaring May 18 to be \u201cTank Day.\u201d The date marks the anniversary of a 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southern city of Gwangju that was brutally oppressed by South Korea\u2019s then military-backed rulers.<\/p>\n
The campaign also used the slogan \u201cThwack it on the table!\u201d which many read as a reference to a notorious 1987 police statement that attempted to cover up the torture death of student activist Park Jong-chol. Authorities had falsely said Park died after investigators \u201chit the desk with a thwack.\u201d<\/p>\n
The public outrage prompted Shinsegae Group, which owns a 67.5 percent stake in Starbucks Korea, to cancel the campaign within hours. It also fired the chief executive of Starbucks Korea. Shinsegae Chairman Chung Yong-jin later issued a televised apology. Starbucks Korea closed all of its stores nationwide early on June 22 for mandatory history and social sensitivity training.<\/p>\n
The police investigation was launched following complaints from relatives of the victims of the Gwangju crackdown, which official records say left about 200 people dead.<\/p>\n
South Korea achieved a genuine democracy in 1987 when then authoritarian President Chun Doo-hwan, who led the Gwangju crackdown, was forced to accept a constitutional revision introducing direct presidential elections in the face of massive pro-democracy demonstrations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL: South Korean police raided the headquarters of Starbucks\u2019 local operation as part of an investigation into a controversial marketing campaign that was perceived as defaming 1980s\u2019 pro-democracy movements. Investigators searched the Starbucks headquarters in southern Seoul on Tuesday, police said Wednesday. Police gave no further details, but South Korean media reported investigators also were …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":101352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101354,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101338\/revisions\/101354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}